Investigation of non-interference real-time debugging through bus cycle simulation and interpretation

  • Authors:

  • T. R. Cahall, Jr.;K. Y. Fang

  • Affiliations:

  • AT&T Information Systems, Department XMPZ60000, 5555 Touhy Avenue, Skokie, IL;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

  • Venue:
  • ACM '87 Proceedings of the 1987 Fall Joint Computer Conference on Exploring technology: today and tomorrow
  • Year:
  • 1987

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Abstract

In the recent decade, software development and debugging advancements have been greatly outpaced by the advancements in hardware design and integration. The largest portion of time spent in software development is testing and debugging. Symbolic debuggers, syntax directed editors, and high level language oriented breakpoint systems have helped reduce the time spent by software developers in debugging their programs. This is not the case for timing and load sensitive real-time software. Conventional breakpoint debuggers cause interference to the target system which alters critical timing and load characteristics. This renders them useless for real-time debugging. A non-interfering debugger is of major importance to the successful debugging of real-time software applications. Such a system must be comprised of both hardware and software components to ensure complete independence from target system resources. This paper discusses the creation of a bus cycle image simulator for a general purpose microprocessor based system. The simulator represents an extensible model of a microprocessor at the bus cycle level. It will be utilized in the research of the hardware and software components of a non-interfering debugger.